Gray day in the Q

February 1, 2009 | Filed Under Main | 3 Comments

It’s been raining all morning. Gray and wet. It rained all day Friday as well. And knowing how bad the driving is and knowing that Kuwaitis are unused to rain, I stayed inside all day. Didn’t want to chance some highway disaster amongst the still speeding Range Rovers, Jaguars and Jeeps. However, as soon as I hit the road this morning, the rain began. Hard at times, but mostly just spitting. At least our flamingoes will be well watered. This is not the weather I encountered last year at all. I guess we have a normal Kuwait winter. And all this time, I thought they were just kidding me…

I mentioned earlier that I was a singles (as in 45 RPM) kind of guy. I was thinking about those days in the late 60s/early 70s when we would blow all our ill-gotten gain on candy, comic books and records (probably in that order). Back then there were no super-stores: no Best Buy or Virgin or even the Wiz. There were just department stores and – as far as I can remember – we bought all our 45s at Kings Department Store in our tiny hamlet of Milford. I know Mom worked at W. S. Grant’s, but I don’t think they had a record department (or at least not one worth a damn). We had Jack’s Music downtown, but that was for instruments and sheet music. And an actual record store (Merle’s Record Rack) did not appear until much later (plus, for all we knew, New Haven was a foreign country). So I’m thinking our collection – parts of which still stand today – came mostly from Kings. Of course, we stopped buying singles when they hit the outrageous price of $1.29. Even then, those industry bastards were greedy.

Have fun with the Super Bowl tonight. I believe it goes off around 2AM my time. But I don’t really have a horse in this race so I don’t think I’m missing much…. Except the commercials.

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3 comments so far
  1. Bowmar Brain February 2, 2009 10:12 am

    We did buy a bunch of 45s at King’s, but we also bought them at Baybrook Pharmacy for a while, too. I remember an occasional purchase at Fladd’s downtown, because they did carry the Top 40. I transitioned to albums faster than you did, and started building my LP collection at Alexander’s at the Connecticut Post. I don’t remember buying comic books (relied on Dad’s purchases), so, until records moved to the top of my list, I think my purchases were baseball cards, some candy and records. Of course, you and Michael spent your money much faster than I did, but that’s a blog entry for another day.

  2. mburma February 2, 2009 10:54 am

    Fladds! I forgot about Fladd’s. Was that next to Jack’s? Bayshore for music I only vaguely remember. Bayshore was for candy and comics… and the paperback book section… which at one time had a copy of “Emmanuelle” (based on the movie) which had a picture insert…

  3. Mom February 2, 2009 1:31 pm

    Jake’s was a diner/bar. (It was hangout when I was in high school – diner side, naturally) It didn’t sell records but was near Fladd’s.